Abstracts
Beate Sjåfjell and Jukka Mähönen have contributed two chapters to the open-access Norwegian volume ‘Kjønn og rett. Kvinne-, kjønns- og likestillingsperspektiver i jusstudiet’ (Gender and Law: Women's, Gender and Gender-Equality Perspectives in Legal Studies), edited by I. Ikdahl, A. Hellum, J. Asland, H. Bruserud, M.A. Hjort, B.G. Jonassen and M.-L. Skilbrei.
Chapter 7: Company Law and a Feminist Sustainability Perspective (Selskapsrett og et Feministisk Bærekraftsperspektiv) - By Beate Sjåfjell
The company, as a dominant form for organising business activity, is a part of the backbone of the Norwegian economy, as it is in many other countries. The company therefore also has a central role in the transition to sustainability. Company law constitutes the regulatory infrastructure for establishing and governing companies. It sets the fundamental rules for decision-making processes in companies, including who shall be involved in a decision and which interests are to be encompassed, and what is the societal role of companies. The overarching company law question of our time concerns how companies can contribute to the fundamental transition to sustainability.
In this chapter the author employs a feminist sustainability perspective, to critically analyse the predominant approach in debates on company law and corporate governance and thereby also the strategies that have been used so far. Her feminist sustainability perspective is not about gender equality, reporting or women on corporate boards (or in management more broadly) and the consequences thereof. It is an alternative and ‘outsider’ perspective, which builds on a research-based understanding of what the goal of sustainability entails, and it is a systemic, interdisciplinary approach that recognizes and encompasses complexity and uncertainty.
The author discusses different approaches to changing business, by drawing on research that can help us understand how organisations, such as companies in our context, are gendered and what that means. Further, by drawing on research on feminist strategies for organizational change, she discusses how a feminist sustainability perspective can contribute towards the necessary fundamental changes of companies. The contribution of company law to the transition to sustainability is no longer only a theoretical discussion. There is an ongoing process in many countries and in the European Union to contribute to sustainable companies. The author concludes the chapter with some reflections on the especially masculinist resistance against change and the hope that time nevertheless has come to decisively challenge the predominant approach to the role of companies and of company law.
Chapter 14: Gender Perspectives on and in Law and Economics (Kjønnsperspektiv på og i rettsøkonomi) - By Jukka Mähönen
Economic analysis of law or law and economics is a field that analyzes the economic effects of legal rules and is therefore crucial in analyzing law as a normative governance instrument. This chapter on feminist law and economics shows how feminist perspectives can highlight the value choices and weaknesses in conventional economic analysis of law, and challenge legal economic analyses that appear for economics as neutral. It show how conventional market economic thinking, such as the ideal type of a “rational economic man" (homo oeconomicus), does not provide a representative view to understand the values and considerations that motivate the behaviour of various groups of people in different areas of life and law. As a counterweight, the author point to economic theories that put caring rationality, rather than individual economic inequality of competition, at the center of the understanding of the socio-economic significance of legal rules.
This chapter addresses also economic perspectives on collective governance of resources at family, household and community level, with examples including money distribution between women and men and valuation of house and care work. When resources are created, governed and shared in close, social communities, there are often gendered patterns in the arrangements. Economic theories that focus on individual competition are ill-suited to understand the socio-economic significance of activities and arrangements that take place in interpersonal relationships. Here, a care-oriented feminist theory can contribute to new law and economics thinking, with a potential to include considerations relevant to both gender equality and sustainable development in societal planning.
Synopsis
Women's law, gender equality and non-discrimination law have constituted fields of research at the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo for decades. Law establishes rights and obligations, legal protections and punishments – it can create, maintain and transform society’s distribution of power and resources between individuals and groups. It is thus an important part of legal education to create understanding of how legal constructs, rules and decisions can lead to – or counteract – inequality and discrimination.
This book presents various types of gender perspectives in a range of disciplines within law. The chapters cover areas within both public and private law, such as family law, administrative law, welfare law, contract law, corporate law, and criminal law. The book also includes gender perspectives in such related disciplines as legal philosophy, legal sociology, criminology, law and economics, and professional ethics for lawyers.
Gender and Law: Women's, Gender and Gender-Equality Perspectives in Legal Studies has been written primarily with law students in mind, but everyone with an interest in the relationship between law, gender, society and politics will find it relevant.
The chapters are published in the open-access Norwegian volume ‘Kjønn og rett. Kvinne-, kjønns- og likestillingsperspektiver i jusstudiet’ (Gender and Law: Women's, Gender and Gender-Equality Perspectives in Legal Studies), edited by I. Ikdahl, A. Hellum, J. Asland, H. Bruserud, M.A. Hjort, B.G. Jonassen and M.-L. Skilbrei
Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2022 - Open access